A Reporter's Perspective

Hi Bill -

From the subject line, you can tell what I've been doing over the weekend. I thought I'd pass along a brief report on my user experience which I am happy to report is favorable. I installed MacinTax Deluxe for Tax Year 1997 from the CD onto my hard drive some time ago. I chose the "full install" mode. All went well.

The Maine state product arrived in the mail on a floppy and I installed that successfully. (State products are available also for downloading from the Intuit site www.macintax.com. after submitting a credit card.) The state product becomes integrated into the application after installation.

I had previously entered a considerable amount of data and was just waiting for one more document to arrive to complete my entries, which I did this weekend. When I reached a point in the preparation of the return, the application prompted me to find out if there were any updates posted. (When I first got MacInTax Deluxe I tried the update feature.When it didn't work, I thought it was because of an incompatibility with Communicator 4.0x. But it was my fault. The update feature does not work if you are using the CD interactively with the installed application, which is the mode that you might use to prepare your tax return, since you get the advantage of the video clips, access to federal tax forms on the CD, etc.) This time, I closed the application, ejected the CD, then reopened and clicked on the update box. The update works from within the application. Once I clicked the update feature, the Internet Dialer dialed my ISP and I connected routinely, then I was connected to Intuit (The browser does not have to be open at the time.) automatically and the application uploaded information about itself. A window displayed advising that an update was available and provided me the option to update the application now. When I did so, two progress bars displayed! One counted the many items that were being down loaded and the second reported on the completion of the download of each item. Neat! And at least it was more interesting to watch than the normal single, slow progress bar. The download was successful - both the federal and state products were updated. The old items - many forms - were put in the trash and I was told to Restart to utilize the update. The updater itself disappeared. (I did have to turn off the Internet Dialer manually. That is true also with Communicator.)

I ran NUM 3.5.2 Disk Doctor and other than bad modification dates on many of the new items (which Disk Doctor fixed routinely), all was in order. I rebooted and finished my tax returns. I chose this year to file my federal return with the 1040 PC form. Last year I did file my federal return electronically and it went well. The electronic filing this year seems also more integrated into the application itself. This year Intuit, in cooperation with the IRS which is promoting greater use of electronic filing, enclosed a form to reimburse the $9.95 electronic filing fee for one electronically filed federal return. Next year, who knows, maybe it will be free up front.

Probably the best news is that there are no user problems to report. The update process went extremely well, all from within the application. And the application itself seems very stable. As you know, I am running Mac OS 8.1 on a standard formatted hard disk.

Feel free to use all, part or none of this information.

Best, Dana

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Copyright © 1998 by Bill Fox.
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